Guild Wars 2

Gear I use mostly clerics with some pieces of precision/vitality/healing power mixed in, after weapon stacks i’m at 1780 healing power unless duo or trioing where I use more dps gear.. i’m using superior runes of altruism 6 piece, I recommend 3x water 3x monk just as much or more.. I don’t have time in my life to run dungeons to get monk runes and i’m happy with altruism, what it does is buff fury for 6 seconds to everyone around me and 3 stacks of might for 10 seconds as well when I do my healing breeze, essentially turning it into a dps shout, don’t underestimate giving your high crit damage friends the fury early in a fight when you need burst damage, it goes a long way, also altruism runes give you 15% boon duration.

Boon duration is a big deal, if a fight turns real difficult and goes long the boons are really going to pay off, my build is a bit more slanted towards DPS and my own personal durability usually with the lemongrass poultry soup instead of 20% boon duration.

Traits as linked above 0/0/10/30/30:

10 into Valor – Strength in Numbers, nearby allies gain 150 toughness, easy choice really for a small group I think.

30 into Honor – 20% off Shout cooldowns a must for Stand your ground and Hold the line for me personally, 20% off 2h cooldowns also a must for me and..

Battle Presence – Heart of the build, with healing power up here it’s constantly ticking for around 240-250 on your teammates, even when they’re pretty far away, even when you’ve activated virtue of resolve it keeps healing your team, if you do the math on how much it heals in total for in a 1 minute fight it’s pretty mind blowing I think, really shines when shifting around retreating, this neverending HoT always helps for this style of play and I feel like it’s one of the great Guardian traits in the game(with high healpower)… Pure of voice is amazing too but IMHO that’s only for the 2nd Guardian in the squad to use if you have one

30 into Virtues – 20% off Consecration cooldowns+longer duration, just for Wall of Reflection, one of the most important abilities imaginable for this style of play..

Absolute Resolution – very important trait, I can’t be without this, improves the passive heal ticks and makes your VoR activate cleanse 3 conditions off you and your group even when they’re far away, I use this very early in a tough fight for the burst 3k heal and to wipe conditions, as soon as I see a few teammates get a bunch of conditions and below 70% health I pop this asap to help them keep momentum and overwhelm, the cooldown is not that long, don’t be afraid to use this, at the start of a fight you pop this with an empower and you’ve put out a 6k+ group heal basically in addition to the VoR ticks/HoT from Hold the line, it all really adds up to enemies thinking your berserker teammates are tanks at the start of a fight.. if you layer an empower, virtue activate and healing breeze you’re putting out 10k+ healing.

Elite Focus – here’s a trait I don’t think many use, i’ve been using it for a long time off and on, Tome of Courage duration goes from 20 to 30, I don’t play small group support without this, especially with the new buffs to tome, also it lets you put out 2x aoe dazes… on that note on to the..

Hi all, just wanted to post about small group Guardian healing to help promote non-zerg WvW play and give some advice on something to try(and have some info to link in my vids description since this prob wont be a popular thread), I feel like a strong support Guardian is the backbone of a small 5~ man roaming group and can make what’s usually a pretty hard style of play alot more doable, i’ll try to keep it brief and in a nutshell just an outline of something for people to try, my background is doing small group world pvp off and on for 10+ years in diff mmos, i’ve played Guardian since beta and have gone through many different builds/styles..

I’ll try to first give an outline of the style of play this build is meant for, I would never use this build soloing, nor dungeons, I wouldn’t use it for running with a zerg I don’t think(I have no experience in that)… it’s mostly focused on 3-7 man sized groups roaming in WvW trying to take on outnumbered fights or baiting/flanking zergs, when I duo I bump up my dps stats, 3 man I bump them up less, 4 or more i’ll probably go for 1700-1800+ healing power(after stacks).

My idea of small group play with my group is to charge in with heavy burst dps and my own burst healing/heavy CC from staff/hammer… retreat with mass invis or shadow refuge, everyone staying tight and calling targets and cc, communicating.

Ok so one good way Guardians can best support a small roaming group in WvW in my humble opinion:

Here’s the trait build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlcg6CXFSLEm4ES2DRqkQQsHYUGtRXFSIA

Here’s my most recent video, i’m not sure how well it illustrates the strength of healing i’m trying to emphasize it more in my next one..

(here’s my other most recent one of a continuous long fight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZqlXn-t5o)

Main objective: burst heal and burst cleanse your DPS friends very early in the fight(from traited virtue of resolve activation), provide momentum, prevent them from ducking and dodging out of the way and blowing their heal ability.. stability at the right time, a wall of reflection, retaliation(blast finishers on the light fields! this helps alot outnumbered), CC cooldown dump, heal cooldown dump, dump all cooldowns and get into tome of courage very early if the fight isn’t feeling won yet.

Weapons – Hammer/Staff:

Hammer I use instead of mace/shield or w/e because I feel the immobilize, ring of death, light fields, 4 second cooldown blast finisher for area retaliation are all priceless in WvW, I don’t even care that much about how much damage i’m doing with it but with fury and might buffed up it can do ok with this build… I have played alot with mace/shield in the past and I just feel like the poor healing range makes it all fall apart and be too unreliable in chaotic outnumbered fights with a small group… it’s worth trying for sure and can work well.

Staff is the main weapon, buffing might of course is huge at the start of the fight on the frontline in the mix with stability with the heal going off right when the team needs it, the heal is 3k approx with this healing power.. Line of warding use it at the start, put it on a wall of reflection maybe, make people waste their stability cooldowns, use it on cooldown… #2 orb is tricky to use but can add a good bit of healing to the mix, autoattack all the time to keep the vigor procs going from the honor trait so you can keep dodging on your teammates, has nice reach/spread and when you have might buffed the damage can really add up.

Urrid.4593:

It is a good idea but implementation would be hard. I suppose you could count credit as being “x amount of people killed guards/ram’ed gates/cata’ed/trebbed wall in the past Y minutes” but something like this would be pretty hard to nail down and then communicate to the playerbase.

As it is Anet has issues communicating how to get credit for regular captures of towers and keeps as it stands.

Well they def should hammer out how contribution works and fix it up a bit anyways, as it is now I don’t think it would hurt if people get credit for it regardless of their level of contribution or where they are when something is taken, would still help getting people circulating away from the lag blobs I think. (so i’m saying the game can just count how many rewards were handed out in the current system and apply the bonus accordingly)

Main thing is to reward people for running off and taking/defending remote camps/towers for their server instead of staying with the mothership racking up wxp.

I think it would be great if the zerg guilds would create small groups to go out and deal with currently low-reward objectives and the people would be happy to be a part of it.

I was thinking about how alot of times WvW zones consist of a couple of mega blobs of people running around(causing huge lag when they clash) with all but 1 or 2 objectives completely left alone and abandoned… it doesn’t seem right to me, but it makes sense because when you take a tower or kill someone with 50 people you get as much wxp etc. as if you were alone…

Wondering what people think would happen if there were bonuses for doing things with less people, for example if a tower capture is rewarded to 5 or less people it attaches an extra 600 wxp to the bonus, if 10 you get an extra 300, if 15 you get an extra 150 and if you get it with 20 or more no extra bonus on top of what you already get… same for defending.. but different bonuses, like on a supply camp maybe an extra 100 wxp with 5 or less people, 50 with 10 or w/e.

Do you think this would break up zerging in a major way and cause people to spread out and fight all over the map and reduce the amount of huge megafights that bring the server to its knees? Would people still zerg just the same… guilds need their members to get wxp… it feels to me like something simple like this would help, just wondering what people think of it.

We [AZRG] run 3-7 mans all the time on Dragonbrand, hard to find good small groups to fight, mostly alot of zerg baiting and spawn/supply camping for us.

Never really link my videos anywhere so figure I should contribute to this thread, small group WvW healing/support guardian.. about 30 mins long

Sir William PD.9615:

They fought us for about 45 minutes in the north camp of FABL. Back and forth, got the best of us 99% of the time I would say. It was close to even numbers from a guild vs guild standpoint (we had 7) but we had some non guildies try to help us as well so really our numbers were more. It was by far some of the best small group fighting I have been a part of, even though I was on the losing end.

Near the end of the fight one of my guys said “Yup, we’re gonna be on YouTube tomorrow”. We were on the wrong end of a highlight reel.

While i’m not sure if i’ll make a vid from that endless fighting last night (100gb recording almost :X and i’m trying to make my new compilation vid) here’s a vid I uploaded from a similar fight from a few nights ago in the same area maybe you’ll find it interesting seeing our POV as a 4-5man, hope to have more fun fighting with yall, need more non-zerg roaming groups out there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKZqlXn-t5o

Hi, i’m about to get a new computer and I understand CPU is the most important thing but if i’m going to play at a really high resolution with high settings how far should I go with a video card? Is 3gb of vram enough? Which cpu is going to work out the best? Not too worried about costs but don’t want to get top of the line super expensive

Tome of Courage is one of my favorite things in WvW, here are 2 videos I threw together recently doing a healing build with the elite focus trait to get a 30 second tome of courage.. about to make a mini guide to playing this style.. most of my videos are dps greatsword/hammer with no healing power on gear but still using tome of courage on cooldown.

and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys2V_XHoP7M

Solo(and when you can duck underwater in group) Renewed Focus is simply amazing, especially with 30 in virtues to reset the stability and condition removal with virtue traits, if timed right it will win fights, just like tome of courage.

I bought a laptop with GW2 in mind recently and it has worked out amazingly, ASUS K55V, it’s about 800 bucks, nowhere near as heavy/expensive as true ‘gaming laptops’ and runs really cool with a good battery, WvW and dungeons… couldn’t be happier, screen is the low point but works for me, and you can hdmi or vga it to a 1920×1080 screen at a hotel or w/e, highly recommended…

I just bought it, happy to give Anet some money, it’s a cosmetic/convenience thing, looks amazing, i’m amazed so many people are nitpicking its cost and how much you would have to mine to make your gold back, isn’t all that gold just for cool cosmetic things like this anyways?

Aristio.2784:

Go away. Do you know how hard it is for an Engineer to keep an opponent within range? Engineers have no gap closers, minus Jump Shot but I don’t think any Engineer would honestly count that.

Give Engineers some gap closers please Anet.

Also I change my mind about stability, the post above about it makes a good point, I just would like to see immobilize not be constantly reapplied.

Sandcaster.9648:

hey all,

pve (dungeon, fractal, and solo) guardian here. been getting bored with the standard 0/0/30/30/10 EM/AH build recently and wanting to try some new stuff!

my new experiment is a 1-handed sword Monk’s Focus build. 0/30/30/5/5, main features being spammable VoJ for the blind and might stacks, right-handed strength, and healing meditation skills. I’m wearing a 70/30 split of berserkers/knights gear, with all ruby jewels.

my damage stats are great, but the problem this build has is a lack of HP… I’m slightly under 12k due to having zero vitality gear, and only 5 points in honor where you’d typically find 30. I only switched over to this build last night. I love the damage, versatility, and fast pace of all the meditations, but I’m wondering if that low HP is going to get me into trouble in fractals at higher levels etc. An Orr temple boss 1-shot me last night and got me thinking this could be a problem…

just curious to hear thoughts about HP totals and how little is too little.

I’ve been doing lev 40’s fractals for a long time and I have alot of success with 0/30/30/0/10, there are times where people are dying horribly on lava boss and I have to tank him infinitely and I respec to get the vigor on crit among other things, if you use the orrian truffle dodge food it helps make up for it, I believe not having the 10 in virtues to alternate consecration duration/cds or unscathed defender is a bad idea, those 2 traits are insanely important imho.

I do not touch the meditation traits however or use any of them almost ever in pve.

Your problems with HP I would just say swap in more survivable gear where you need it until you really master avoidance, I would never wear my full berserkers in some of the tough boss fights, get 2 sets of gear or more.

To me it’s really simple, you push your damage as far as you can for whatever dungeon situation you’re getting into without compromising being able to stay alive/relevant in the fight.. in high level fractals i’ll go anywhere from mostly power/tough/vitality to full berserkers, and change my traits in similar ways..

It comes down alot to your teammates and how well you can avoid damage with positioning/projectile blocking/dodging, my gear shifts constantly, to me when it comes down to whether you want survivability or raw dps the answer is a clear BOTH, start with somewhat survivable as you learn the encounters, don’t stop collecting gear.

I believe immobilize is too strong and should be nerfed in some way, as time has gone on in WvW it is becoming more and more common to see groups with an emphasis on immobilizing, our small group has been trying to abuse it when we can and of course it’s incredibly effective, definitely the strongest condition in WvW, it really wins fights by itself if condition removals aren’t ready, as if there isn’t always too many conditions on you to hope it will be one that gets removed.

I would like to see a diminishing return of some sort on it, like if you get immobilized you get a buff that makes you immune to immobilize for the same duration you just spent in it, it’s the chain immobilizes that make me want to break my keyboard personally..

I also think having stability block immobilize being applied but not remove it would be an awesome solution, or being able to dodge on the spot.

longshot.1397:

thanx folks.. will try speccing into right-handed strength and off-hand torch.. GS while brilliant, I want to mix it up a bit with something a wee bit different. hope it works out :-)

looking at this build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJA8flYg67WFSJEg4Eh1DBeQ/VVIeYPqI87IA

if it works out ok, should i change to condition gear or just stay with zerker

apprciate the feedback

You really ought to get a GS as well though, there are situations where it’s extremely helpful, it’s useful on almost all trash pulls, retaliation through combo, blind through leap, aoe pull..

On the jumping/cat robot fractal last boss it’s great to aoe pull the adds at the end.

Lava boss your group will really want an aoe pull with GS for the add phase..

Ice fractal you want to be able to pull the elemental adds in that phase..

Ascalon fract it can be really helpful to pull adds from behind statue.

Colossus it’s very helpful to pull adds in on the chest seals.

Anyways, personally I use sword/shield/torch/scepter/greatsword/hammer/staff all throughout the various dungeons, there’s a place for all of them, and I do spec for right handed strength, doesn’t matter, still need to use GS alot(no traits in 2h for me btw), it’s very important to have available.

As for the build I do not recommend going for that as you’re missing 10 in virtues which to me are very important, my biggest dungeon build recommendation is to alternate between consecration cds/duration or unscathed defender, 2 very powerful traits for dungeons… conditions are not a huge problem in dungeons generally I think pure of voice is a bad idea particularly, you can always use torch/condition cleansing consecration if they become a problem anywhere.

I would never ever choose AH in a build meant to support my teammates, ever, I don’t need it to stay alive, my teammates get nothing out of it, simple as that.

Personally I held on to 3 of these(scythe/shield/greatsaw) as i’m sure many people particularly those who read this kind of forum did.

I find these items quite interesting, what to do with them, in mid January the prices/supply in the trading post became kind of static until now, the Grinning shield is just starting to go up again.. it seems as though many people had stock of them and have been keeping the amount available to 20-30 all the time, you see these items alot out in WvW and you can see there’s always demand for them.

Are people starting to run out of stock? Grinning shield down to 9 available… so what happens next?

It seems likely to me that they’re going to reintroduce these in the next halloween event, but there is the fact that not all weapon types got interesting skins last event, what if they just release a new wave and not the old ones to allow for the last ones to become more of a rare unique item? (this would also cause alot of excitement to get the new ones if it looked like an indication that they wouldn’t be reintroduced next season probably)

Just wondering what people are thinking about these and when to sell them, as it gets closer to Halloween I wonder when/if people will start to unload them incase they become somewhat common again, how many will hang on and see if they aren’t reintroduced? How late to wait? I find it a tough interesting decision, when to cash in, they’re too valuable for me to use now and some people have too much money, they are super unique skins..

edit: just found this in a google search about it from someones post, I never played GW1

Anet has a history of making items discontinued (or at least exclusively rare) in gw1 as seen by mini mallyx, vizu, oni, etc.. so it is a possibility that it will happen again. Just my two cents

I love this game because WvW is active and an infinite skill ceiling, the amount of ways you can build classes/groups is miraculous to me compared to every other mmo, always an outnumbered fight to find if you want a challenge..

Fractals 40+ is the first MMO pve content I don’t get bored with, all of WoW’s instances and other games just become boring and routine, I actually have to concentrate and adapt my gear/build as it goes on, it’s very challenging and doesn’t take up my whole night and has great rewards(cool fractal skins, they drop alot at 40+).

Really excited about the next fractal type instance or the culling patch coming up… no subscription, no real need for gold it’s just fun money for cosmetics.. best online game ever for me.

I really think there’s nothing wrong with people fighting in huge groups, if culling can be fixed it will be even more amazing for alot of players..

I’ve been doing small WvW groups in mmos for a long time and the #1 problem facing us is kinda obviously culling, waiting for the fix is like waiting for christmas, it’s like waiting for guild wars 3, I believe alot of players of my style will come back to the game or be happier with it.

Culling is so bad sometimes on my tier it gets pretty stressful, you find a big group you want to pick apart bait and stretch and you start analyzing them and while youre looking at them 5-10 people appear pretty much on top of you and now you’re getting chain immobilized and it’s stressful, still though have alot of success and great fights some nights, it’s just hard when everyone is feeling like we wiped due to culling.

I think once culling is worked out people can really start to explore the art of exploiting zergs, especially due to the fact that we now get hotspots for only 25+ in combat(this allows us to drag sections of people to semi remote areas and lock a fight in without a nearby zerg going to our cool fight like bees to honey) and people not being in a huge party(people aren’t as easily coordinated in zergs in gw2).

Personally I think if the culling fix is true guerilla warfare will grow due to it being more fun consistent and controlled, I believe alot of players will come back/get into it, oh yea 10 cap on aoe would be interesting too but at the same time i’d like to see single target assisting become more rewarded somehow.. but whatever… culling fix, I dream of you

DeathPanel.8362:

Note I said “to take maximum advantage of your dps build”.

If you are using low dps weapons then your damage output as a % to your team is going to be low anyway despite your gear.

Why do I have to “take maximum advantage of my dps build”?

It’s actually a supporting build, I change weapons, gear, utilities on every single fractals map and throughout the situations within them, the damage is not low with high crit, high crit damage, 20% more damage with aegis up, it’s constant damage pretty much always going, and there’s no need to cut back anyways, cause we all live and keep dpsing.. who cares how I even compare to other classes as long as i’m reaching my potential without compromising uptime, my utility skills are what my unique class strength is.

TBH maximizing dps in gw2 high level 40s fractals takes alot of concentration for me and took a good bit of practice, I feel challenged by fractals 40+ to maximize my damage potential as a Guardian without negating my unique support/buff abilities I bring to the table…

DeathPanel.8362:

It’s a difference in opinion regarding how to contribute dps.
Any dps focused build can only go GS/Sceptor + Torch to take maximum advantage of your dps.

Stacking 12 might stacks every 20 seconds at +%boon duration to the whole team with staff contributes far more dps to the team than what you are doing.

And before you claim you can do the same, consider that while you are doing Staff #4 you are actually not attacking, which totally negates your dps gear.

Meanwhile, the survivability is higher on a support build. You yourself admit that trash mobs sometimes reduce you from 100% to 5-10%.

In the same situation the trash mob would do far less damage to a pvt/knight or cleric geared guardian and the cleric based guard could recover to full by just hitting a F1-F3 or dodging a few times while you would be stuck evading and waiting on your heal CD and hoping you won’t get hit again which means you are losing dps.

Firstly I have no trouble on trash on lev40 fractals, it’s just not that challenging, you put up some utility skills(WoR w/e), use pull/aoe with gs or staff, you can go with signet heal cooldown reduction, renewed focus and AH work well to keep you going, important thing is spamming VoJ once they start to fall, buffs teammates might stacks vulnerability and blinds unless its dredge(heals you a little too), you can open the pull with staff might stacks if you want, I do not lose hardly any dps time on trash from being low health.

Going to 10% is not much different from going down to 20-30%, I signet heal or pump out virtues or just attack ranged without my GS for a sec, it’s not a problem, trash dead no downtime. Non-issue for me, don’t need heals or more survivability.

I dont feel a need to be tanky, I dont feel I need to be healing anyone or myself any more than I get from AH/virtues/signet heal, trash goes so well for me without tanky stats/healing gear, also boon duration food is nice. Also the cast time on empower is short and you can still benefit from full berserker if you attack with staff/switch to whatever. No point stressing over trash either way you can pretty much faceroll it quickly with WoR and other utilities with any pug.

Secondly boon duration stuff is great and all, here’s a problem I have with being focused on stacking might thought, it’s super great in theory and it really can work but I pug alot and even if i’m not pugging, people get scattered all over the place on alot of the drawn out dps fights and it’s hard to get the might stacks on everyone consistently, people end up all over the place one guy dodges left one dodges right, another reason I don’t consider +healing.

Love boon duration food, love having the gear to maximize my dps, don’t need to be tanky/healing, i’ve been doing high level fractals very smoothly for a long time, I can still swap in staff and stack everyones might if I want to, nothing wrong with your approach at all though imo, for me runs go smooth how i’m doing it and stuff dies fast, healing would seem like a waste, wish I could consistently land the might stacks on everyone, I still do when I can.

Any dps focused build can only go GS/Sceptor + Torch to take maximum advantage of your dps.

This particular sentence makes no sense to me, why can’t I mix scepter and staff on a ranged fight? Quick example bloomhunger, boon duration food, use projectile blocking, everyone together in same area, stack might with staff switch to scepter and dps, back and forth, full berserker, where’s my lack of support? I don’t see what’s the problem.

I’ve been running 30-40 fotm for quite awhile as a Guardian and I recommend highly you only get berserkers ascended gear since at higher levels if you’re ever maxing anything out I believe it should be dps, I mix in pieces of vital/toughness to varying degrees depending on the map/situation, i’ve never used mace in fotm, I use scepter, shield, staff, 1h sword, greatsword, hammer, torch.. if you like AH I recommend 0/30/30/0/10, using either unscathed defender or consecration duration/cds depending on the fight.

DeathPanel.8362:

If you go boon duration+ runes with that trait and gear setup you’d end up with something like 12k or lower hp and no ability to remove conditions from yourself or your teammates. (No soldiers runes, no pure of voice trait) You are essentially a dps warrior with half the hp and less damage.

Also, how do you not get 1 shotted by trash mobs in fotm 20+ with that setup? (Not all mobs have telegraphed red circles for attacks that you can dodge…)

I’ll be honest I don’t see where conditions are that big of a problem in FOTM, I do lev 40’s and 38’s all the time, on the Ascalon/Dredge and some other trash I put on a few pieces of toughness/vitality and it’s not anything like a dps warrior because I have wall of reflection, shield punt, protection buffs, on and on… stuff like WoR and spamming blind/vulnerability with VoJ help alot and just good dodging, duck in and out, pull, aoe, dodge, spam blind, rinse repeat, dodge and signet heal.

I don’t run boon duration runes in fotm though, I just don’t see why you can’t and still be dps slanted, you’d be surprised how much condition removal you can do with torch #5 on the rare fights where conditions are a big problem or the condition removal consecration, I use those on the colossus guy if someones having a hard time avoiding for example, while wearing full berserker pretty much… after alot of FOTM runs you can get really good at avoiding damage completely, i’m sorta slowly working on a video to demonstrate.

It is kinda scary sometimes, you do go 100% to 5-10% alot on some of the trash with low hp, just gotta use stuff like renewed focus and utilities and dodge well. (I try to get 14k hp at least on the tough trash esp at 40, that’s just what works for me) I’d only go full tilt 100% berserkers on the very avoidable boss fights.

KensaiZen.3740:

This is where a decent Boon Guard focused on giving might will shine the most. with indefinite 20+ stacks of might your groups DPS will go Higher then if you were to solo spec for DPS.

That is about an extra 200 points of damage for everyone whilst under the affects of the boon. 200×5=1000 extra damage output (your own base damage has already been factored in) This multiplier also affects skills what not that the other group members use.

Another aspect of the Boon Guard which does so well is that it also gives superior defencive boons and healing as a knock on from trying to bring as much might tot eh table as possible OR you are bringing as much might as possible whilst trying to heal and defend everyone.

I really don’t see a negative side to the boon Guard at all. The damage output of my Boon Guard wearing full clerics with Boon duration runes is comparable to my Knights/zerker Guard. Not exactly losing out on much at all.

I urge you to try it in any dungeon as practice. I run dungeons ALOT and have been doing fractals up to lvl 19 with it and it works very well. This is without any AR what so ever (can out heal the AR damage with burst healing from shouts and signet)

I’d recommend trying Boon Guard with heavy dps gear and boon runes at some point.. can still do real good single target scepter dps and switch to staff to buff might, at lev19 fractals things die pretty fast, at 40 you get a bit desperate for max dps so the evil 1shotting thing just dies, at that level most people are good at avoiding everything from practice. Not sure if you care to go that far into FOTM thats just my advice if you do, thats really where I feel maximizing dps without sacraficing utility is real important and supportive.

DeathPanel.8362:

No one’s arguing that dps isn’t an issue in high end instances. As I’ve mentioned before I have a full berserker set for my guard as backup for specific cases.

The point is guardian dps contribution to a team is not comparable to many other more dps focused classes. The question becomes does the extra damage you gain from dps build guardian outweigh the losses in support/boon duration in that situation.

As a guard you spend most of your time applying boons and cc type skills that are low in damage anyway compared to other classes in that situation you mentioned, so speccing for damage doesn’t actually boost your team’s overall damage % by much if at all while it certainly decreases boons and personal survivability. (Even cleric guards have higher dmg mitigation than zerk guards)

And while mobs will 1-2 shot you in higher lvl fractals, having extra toughness can mean the difference between being 1 shot and surviving.

First of all I have no problem with boon duration stuff, you can have everything be power/precision/crit damage and still have good boons with runes/points in virtues etc., 1h mastery+unscathed defender in something like a 0/30/30/0/10 build is alot of consistent sustained single target damage from far range if you need it with Scepter, you can still put out the same utility as a healer/toughness/vitality Guardian pretty much if all the dodging/red circle avoiding stuff is working out for everyone.

Need to record some tests or something maybe timing with combat log on various mobs to truly compare something like War vs Guardian single target dps(of course War should win cause they’re not putting out the support I do but i’d like to see how much it really is), I feel like my damage is very good and my support is fine, I do put on tough/vital gear to varying degrees in 40+ fractals for sure though, but it’s still good damage and I try to keep it high as possible.

Danicco.3568:

And this is so true.
Exactly why the dungeon content isn’t insanely hard or complex, so the game is a bit more forgiving on this, so you can actually play how you want.
It’s not like people will complain if your build/gear performs at 90% instead of 100%, because as long as you’re moving and doing something, it’s good enough already.

Yeah agree, level 40’s FOTMs is the one place where I think healing becomes a huge no-no, otherwise do whatever, it really is all pretty straightforward and a bit face-roll as long as things aren’t dying super slow, I still feel that it isn’t being optimal at all replacing any dps for healing but life isn’t all about optimization, have to have fun and find your comfort zone and it depends who you play with, it’s so true that having healing power in your gear doesn’t mean you can’t provide damage.

Once you get to lev40+ fractals(it is relevant to this discussion, it’s a somewhat challenging dungeon especially with 35 AR or less, trying to give a good example for the debate, some people have no interest in ever doing it thats fine) the mobs have so much more health and hit so hard that having anyone who isn’t optimizing their DPS it really shows, long drawn out single target fights that I feel the only responsible thing to do is to maximize your damage without completely compromising your survivability, heals would be really unsupportive to your group in 40 fractals, I run full berserkers on some fights but alot of them I bump up my vitality/toughness to varying degrees because of some chaotic element, but the last thing I want to see is that someone put healing power in their gear on this instance, it’s a definite slow-down with zero gain, you will have lost some protection against the 1-shot bursts or lowered your dps in some way, just the way it’s designed, it’s a tough judgement call figuring out how much I should reduce my damage to give myself room to mess up because not all damage is easily avoidable, sometimes it’s hard to see mob animations, and helping kill as fast as technically possible so the huge spikes of damage stop is usually the most supportive thing you can do as a Guardian in addition to the many unique support abilities that have no connection to your stats.

Even the trash mobs like say Dredge at 40, you really want them dead ASAP, if they don’t die optimally they start dazing/nuking people and downing people, in this dungeon content the best offense is by far the best defense, things like protection, hammer/staff CC, projectile blocking/reflecting mechanisms are king.. I put my tanking gear on in Dredge temporarily when i’m running interference for the panel clicker at the start, it’s another unique example like when things go wrong on chest seals on high level Colossus, killing is not really relevant on that part.

I’m a healing Guardian in pvp usually, I love it, and i’m always thinking of where it could help in a dungeon run, so far it’s just that one situation where things go wrong on Colossus at high levels that I listed earlier where I was compelled to heal, otherwise as a kind of extreme player I feel like I need to support with abilities and high damage.

Any Guardians reading this intending to do 30+ fractals at some point I highly recommend you work on a full set of berserkers from CoF to switch in at least on alot of the boss fights cause that’s what’s going to help you avoid everyone running out of cooldowns and slipping up to the nasty burst damage outside of our obvious support utilities which need to be situationally chosen.

The hardest runs here are the ones with the slowest dps, that’s where the deaths and wipes happen.

Star Ace.5207:

I wonder why they have Healing Power, corresponding gear, and Runes that clearly emphasize such playstyle. Probably to mess with our heads, since Healing Power is “terrible” and useless… we need 0 Healing Power as only DPS matters! As the Skritt would say: “Quick! Kill it!”

Humans tend to forget that personal preference =/= “facts” for everybody else.

I would say that gear is for people who want to make exploring new content go smoother or stuff like doing a hard world event with very few people, for soloing/duoing world content but most of all, for PVP.. and noone is saying you can’t heal in dungeons, personal preference, some of us just question how supportive it is to reduce your damage to provide more healing in the current dungeon designs.

I looove healing in WvW and would be happy to do it in dungeons, +healing is more effective than ever with the staff buffs too, I just am not seeing any dungeon encounters that seem to call for it, I kinda expect in time there will be content where i’ll feel driven to run heal specs to deal with mechanics, I sort of think all this content was designed without requiring healing for particular reasons like not wanting groups to have to deal with finding a ‘healer’, I think the fact that 5 random people can just jump in a dungeon with whatever spec they want and not deal with the whole ‘whos tanking? whos the healer? why didnt you heal me?!?! stuff from other mmos is cool, just stay out of the red circles, dodge when the boss does an animation type of stuff, i’ll give the one example i’ve found where I felt driven to put my healing gear on in a dungeon:

Fractals Colossus if someone kills the mob marked to not be killed in high levels(30-40) when you get mass spawns on both sides, rare situation, I felt like I helped with this kind of hectic situation by putting my heal stuff on and using staff + mace/shield and hold the line/battle presence/imp VoR etc. and helped get the hammer carriers in and out while helping the tunnel people stay up.. there is alot of sustained damage which with my group makeup wasn’t able to avoid entirely and it seemed like the healing really helped make this tough situation work out.

I’m interested to hear from the dungeon healing Guardians encounters/situations they feel like having a healing aspect is having a big impact and why, it helps further the debate I think, there’s definitely a big disagreement here.

I think the biggest point for my argument against dungeon healing maybe is the whole nature of heavy spike damage that goes around healing entirely that is usually causing the problems, ask yourself, are you sure it’s not better to help block that damage entirely with Guardian mechanisms while providing about as much DPS as you can so the 1 shotting monster stops getting opportunities to 1 shot?

Anyways play what you find fun obviously, not trying to put dungeon healers down, I just like to really pick apart things in this game, i’ve gone through so many style changes and so many traits, too many gear sets.. the games class designers are genius imho.

KoRnStyleZ.7142:

At least i will do something different than usual, mr “im trying to compete GS warrior DPS as a guardian”"

Sorry man you got me mixed up with someone else, I guess you skimmed over my posts cause all you seem to want to hear is that being a healing guardian in dungeons is good, i’m the guy promoting using Guardian support abilities and never mentioned doing Warrior dps, I talk about maximizing our dps in certain situations while still contributing unique Guardian support, neverminding what the Warrior class does… I don’t see them putting up projectile blocking walls or throwing out an aegis or giving us all stability when we need it etc., nor aoe pulling, etc.

If you want to do something different, yeah go healing in dungeons, it’s been pretty unpopular for a long time for guardians to do that, and personally I see why.

KoRnStyleZ.7142:

Incomingray.8075:

I just feel like in dungeons it’s non-supportive and I prefer to never have a healing Guardian in any of the current dungeons in my group.

Just three words: I don’t care.

I don’t care if you care anymore, there’s other people reading this thread and all my advice in it is for them at this point, gl with healing people in dungeons.

KoRnStyleZ.7142:

Well, guys wait a second. First of all, i just asked if Support Guardian with HP is viable in the game. And you told me that they are. I really appreciate some people stating that dps guardian with little support is more balanced etc BUT, i didn’t ask you what build i should play. I wanted to know if Support is good in dngs. Since it is, i prefer you to help me make a nice Build.

Deleted my last post but I just think it’s a bit strange that you’re saying it is good in dungeons to build around healing as if you now know because of what some Guardians have posted here, you don’t know that yet and a bunch of us are advising you that it isn’t.

It’s not needed, maybe in the next big dungeon healing will be needed, right now it’s good for first time encounters or players who really struggle with dodging, most people know the content and some will probably cringe when they see you healing instead of doing good dps.

To me full support means having more than 1 set of gear, having the ability to do really good dps while supporting with class abilities and not losing out on helpful dps with healing stats, people can dodge and heal themselves, in pvp full support to me means healing power but in dungeons I agree to disagree that it’s supportive at all.

Only posting that since you’re saying “Since it is” so matter of factly, based on your OP you don’t know the dungeon content very well in this game and you might find the healing aspect of this so called ‘full support’ is not needed.

Play it if you find it fun and want to really make sure noone dies(but wait, what if people are dying from spike damage from something that didnt die fast enough?), healing is a blast in pvp and super effective, I just feel like in dungeons it’s non-supportive and I prefer to never have a healing Guardian in any of the current dungeons in my group.

Just being on-topic and replying to your op as truthfully as I can here..

It’s another place where for my usual pug situations I do not see where Guardian type of healing would help that much here, people that don’t dodge well can get rezzed with stability, biggest threat is the adds which you want high DPS GS aoe and the pull with the wall of reflection to shut down before newer players die to not dodging/going to fire.

Lava map:

On the first adds, wall of reflection, sanctuary, shield of the avenger are nice here if the grou kitten truggling a bit, just helps keep things under control, GS to pull, aoe em down, I don’t feel a need for tanky gear here with some dodging/positioning, kill fast.

Upper shaman fight, I switch to hammer+scepter/shield with sanctuary, wall of reflection and something else whatever maybe a signet with immobilize or knockdown if the groups CC is bad, cc adds to death for chest and on boss part walls of reflection and unscathed defender full berserker DPS, after practice it’s not hard to avoid damage here, timely aegis, shield #5’s, protection buffs and WoR of course are big support for players having a hard time avoiding the damage that tbh is avoidable with practice.

Main boss fight:
switch off UD for consecration duration, greatsword+scepter/shield, shield of the avenger, wall of reflection and sanctuary, I swap in tome of courage for renewed focus here incase everyone goes low on add phases and need heals, I put on some of my gear with toughness/vitality on this encounter but need to aoe the adds down fast so low survival players don’t die fast in the chaos, I don’t think healing would help as much here, Sanctuary/wall/shield can be a great help in rez recoveries from the inevitable player who doesnt ever dodge the arrow and lied about his AR. but mostly those skills can save the day on the add phase, true guardian support right here, fight adds behind the bubbles/walls with GS pulls and such, shield #4 and #5 to bail out low health people if they need it.

Vertical jumping puzzle Cat robot map whatever it’s called:

Wall of reflection, hallowed ground, shield of the avenger or SYG whichever, maybe use unscathed defender if people don’t need the stability so much, full berserker here to kill the harpies asap.. do whatever on the 4 bosses encounter it’s a brawl, depends on group how I do this one… on Old Tom of course best you can do is full berserkers/UD/max dps however you can, just makes run go faster this encounter is nothing, this is supporting your group having high dps available.

Last boss: of course WoR, SoA and sanctuary will help pugs aware of them stay alive here, healing would do nothing at all really, kill robots fast, Greatsword pull on last phase with a wall between you and the boss, burn em down fast, I may put on some toughness/vitality gear here for insurance.

Anyways most dungeons the damage is pretty predictable with practice, damage is honestly all pretty avoidable when you get used to it, without knowing the mechanics well or if dodging isn’t going well, should definitely keep your vitality/toughness up until you do, but I believe every serious Guardian should keep a set of full DPS gear in their back pocket to help kill faster in the frequent sections where people aren’t under heavy pressure at least, it’s not that expensive and it’s not that much inventory space. I see that as supporting your group.

George Steel.1804:

Does it work? Yeah.
Does full GC work? Yeah.

The issue…

I often face myself grouping with players of “less than desirable” skill levels.
So, what does my cleric+soldier outfit do for me?

Answer: I can carry these people through a dungeon. Literally. My dodges AoE heal for 1300. My shouts transfer conditions to boons. My regen and groupwide VoR tick for monstrous amounts.

While I can definitely stay alive and do amazing damage in full GC gear, I can’t really offer my team anything besides damage. Yeah, maybe a little regen, might on crit, but nothing sustainable. But the problem isn’t about me staying alive, it’s my party.

And tbh, I didn’t roll a guardian thinking I wouldn’t support my team.

DeathPanel.8362:

Sure, that would work if you are in a team of people you know and run with regularly over vent or teamspeak.

But if you pug like most people do full support builds can carry an otherwise mediocre team whereas a glass cannon build can’t.

I’ve been pugging high level fractals for a long time usually just with my girlfriend and sometimes with another friend… fortunately at 30+ most people know the drill for the most part but the ones that don’t I just don’t see how me living longer or healing them would help them that much more than killing fast, people who don’t know when to dodge get just about 1shot if their damage is half decent.

Support is a loaded word, I don’t heal in dungeons, I often do WvW with +1500 healing these days and love Guardian healing ALOT, I just try to kill things fast as I find if mobs are alive too long their heavy damage mechanisms take their toll, but nothing wrong with your approach that’s your style and I bet it works great for keeping the group up, there’s such a variety of types of players you can get in your group and some players have serious issues with stuff like dodging/watching animations.

My support is through utility/weapon skills, i’ll list what I employ to support while in glass cannon or semi-glass cannon gear in level 30-40 FOTMs in a few maps for examples of what I consider my Guardian support, I find this thread interesting and just want to go over some things for Guardians who are just getting into FOTM and looking for some advice:

First though I want to say that a well timed Aegis through VoC(reset with renewed focus!) or retreat can help groups alot in any map here against the burst mechanisms in high levels, try to always think of that, a well timed Aegis can really save people who don’t know when to dodge/where to be.(i’m emphasizing what I consider Guardian support)

Frost map:

Wall of reflection, hallowed ground, stand your ground.. on ice elemental boss part, I may switch off some of my berserkers here since the damage can be a little rough if pugs are likely to do things like pulling too many adds and you get bad teleport spawns.. I may use consecration durations/cd trait instead of Unscathed Defender on lev40, when things get a bit hectic i’ll use hallowed ground near the fire, stand your ground for when people are regrouping/rezzing if needed, gather adds with greatsword, put a wall of reflection in front of them and burn them down asap with gs aoe, this is my support here in a nutshell. (the final boss is a punching bag that just dies and you can go extreme full 100% dps mode without any worry aside from some dodging/positioning, unscathed defender switched back in).

rambling continued next post…

DeathPanel.8362:

Don’t believe in the troll that tried to derail the topic earlier.

Class cannon may work for exp dungeons but in fotm higher lvls it’s a liability. (doesn’t really matter though since exp dungeons are easy enough for any variant setup to work when it comes to guards)

Meleeing in general is dangerous in fotm high lvls and without meleeing you can’t take full advantage of the zerk build.

Glass cannon in high level FOTM works great.

I do lev40 fractals every day and most of the time i’m in glass cannon mode and don’t die much and the scepter/torch/sword damage with 30 in radiance, points in valor and Unscathed Defender is really strong constant damage, it totally takes advantage of the berserkers gear… i’m not a liability, still have all the Guardian functionality, dodging/avoiding the 1shot stuff through experience/practice.

People should definitely play however they want, if being support makes you and your group comfortable and makes things go smoother thats great, but so you know alot of high level FOTM groups do very well without any support players, death is often prevented by things dying fast so the 1shot type of mechanics don’t get to play out, so don’t tell yourself or believe that it’s not viable, I recommend people trying it and knowing it works well, it does take experience in the dungeon.

ComeAndSee.1356:

Playing support Guardian in dungeons is about tanking the mobs that the squishies can’t take, providing boons/utilities to make the encounters easier, bringing healing (mace, selfless daring, battle presence, etc) while still being able to do reasonable damage.

DPS is just one thing, raw numbers. It’s about bringing the boss from 100% to 0% as fast as possible, but support is about keeping your allies alive to make it easier for them to kill things.

It’s the difference between being selfless and selfish. Guardian’s full potential really doesn’t show in DPS builds, especially in WvW.

Support guardian’s in WvW are incredibly powerful — group heals, wall of reflections, wall of lining+sanctuaries, swiftness, stabilities, and tomes.

The whole arguement here is that you can have full berserkers at your disposal in a dps oriented build and still have all the required support and still be able to tank mobs… having a build that can pretty much maximize your damage output really doesn’t hurt your group support/utility I find.. say i’m facing level 40 fractals Dredge trash, i’ll put on a bit of tough/vital gear and use hammer or GS or w/e and walls of reflection etc. and stay alive tanking mobs protecting teammates, when we get to the single target boss i’m in full berserkers with alot of DPS traits selected doing alot of damage and not dying, and i’m still putting out guardian utility.

To me it’s about being versatile but having the ability to pretty much max out your damage so that things die fast when you need to.. I also find that killing mobs fast as possible is often what saves lives, against the 1shot type of things in dungeons I think it’s best to burn things down quickly to support your teammates.

KoRnStyleZ.7142:

Why should everyone in dngs use Full Dps berserks gear builds??? I know the faster you kill the boss the faster the dng will end, but again if i wanted to play a pure DPS char i would go for Warrior…. Oh i found the perfect solution. Lets remove all the Healing Power, Soldiers (tankish) items and attributes, and make all the proffessions being Pure High Damage Dealers…..

Slow down here, you have to realize I said to each his own, i’m just offering advice based on my experience, I also said that we have alot of support while in full dps mode, you can’t dispute the fact that some Guardians are making high dps builds work, if it doesn’t work for some people that’s fine, play whatever style you want, I just prefer to see high damage Guardians who don’t neglect their utility in my groups so that’s what I advise other Guardians to strive for because it has worked so well for me… and i’m stating reasons why.

I use healing power in PVP alot, I just don’t see a place for it in optimal dungeon running at this point.. I like fast runs, I want to get the dungeon finished and get back to pvping Oh yeah and I do switch in tough/vitality gear in dungeons when the situation calls for it, I don’t use full berserkers only, my build is dps slanted but has lots of utility.

Also want to add that being squishy sometimes makes a dungeon a bit more exciting and challenging for me, I love the unscathed defender trait, I love maximizing my damage by not getting hit by anything.

I do hard dungeons switching in full berserkers on alot of fights and it causes no problems, the damage output is very good, focusing on support beyond traiting consecration cd/durations for some fights/switching in tankier gear for some situations just seems like unnecessarily wasted potential.. I love how all 5 players can maximize dps and make runs go fast, I think it’s something to aim for, alot of fights I can maximize my dps and everyone is just fine, my walls, shields of the avengers, stability, boons, protection, cc and might buffs are all functioning.

To each his own I just don’t like to see full support slow damage Guardians in my group, just makes me spend more time in that instance, in my experience it’s not necessary if everyone is playing right and dodging properly.

Also to say that full berserker is a waste of time sounds crazy to me, run more tests, lots of us guardians are surviving and supporting just fine wearing it and providing as much dps as possible, traits like unscathed defender and right handed mastery go a long way… either way even if it just added 1% damage its still worth it if you aren’t dying while wearing it.

Also agree tanking/healing not needed in Dungeons, just rambled on about this in a nearby thread, recommend you focus on maximizing damage + damage avoidance through dodging/consecrations/shields

Personally I highly recommend taking advantage of the super cheap respecs and play multiple builds instead of trying to make one work for everything.

I do lev 40 fractals and this build would hold us back, as the levels get higher I find you need more and more dps without sacrificing your utility..

Criticism of your build for fractals(I have no opinion on how someone builds for PVP, my WvW builds are numerous and all completely and totally different from my fractals builds, anything works depending on style and group makeup):

The Valor points just make you unnecessarily tanky imho but not really effectively against the burst you face in higher level fractals, when you do need any kind of tankiness I find I can just use shield/hammer/switch to power/tough/vitality gear from full or near full berserkers, group protection I find comes from consecrations and shield of the avenger, basically what i’m saying is the damage taken is either not a big deal or too big of a deal, I find it just comes down to positioning and dodging and projectile blocking.(or stability/condition removal/aegis)

Honor traits, I love battle presence in WvW with a healing build but really it’s trickle healing that I dont think your team should need to stay alive against the hard stuff in FOTM.. 2h weapon cooldown trait is nice and all but I dunno, it mostly brings up utility faster, the autoattack stuff is strong dps, I use Scepter in alot in the boss fights, when I want to AOE with gs/hammer on trash I don’t really stress on cooldowns much, alot of autoattacking to do. Shout cd reduction I find is real nice in places where you want hold the line or stand your ground to deal with something.

10 points in Virtues is the most important for my usual FOTM build to have either consecration duration or unscathed defender, I switch between those 2 all the time, Scepter would kinda suck without UD.

So this is my humble advice to you as an experienced lev40 fotm runner, try a DPS approach, I personally(most don’t seem to spec like me) like something like 10 or 20/30/x/x/x(right handed strength), I change most of the traits in there depending on map that comes up and use anywhere from full berserker gear to alot of power/tough/vital and usually full berserker jewelry no matter what..

Stay alive through wall of reflection, sanctuary, hold the line, stand your ground, hallowed ground, shield of the avenger, save yourselves with +endurance(my usual food, if 10 in honor always trying to proc vigor and dodge alot) or heal proc food or something instead of trickle heals from AH/BP, I find scepter/torch/shield/hammer/1h sword/greatsword/staff all to be useful at some points of the instance.

I’m confused as to what the idea of this build is, pve? pvp? In pve a build that uses scepter sometimes you should have Unscathed Contender available imho, you do not have it all if you don’t get the 20% damage from being ranged and unhit.. I build differently for different instances… for FOTM without 10 in virtues i’d go crazy, consecration duration or unscathed defender, too useful offensively or defensively.. I recommend trying 10/30/0/20/10 or 20/30/0/10/10.

Scepter is great ranged dps in PVE when you need it(esp with full berserkers and unscathed defender), I have never used it in PVP tho

Xante.2184:

I do ok with damage or so it seems to me with using a great sword but not sure what to use for secondary. i am torn between sword and focus which is my norm or trying a sceptre for some range. i have seen some threads though havent really read them yet about sceptres being broken so not sure what to do.

Scepter is not broken at all, I run lev 40 fractals every day with a 20/30/0/10/10 build, it gives me 15% crit on 1h, I can switch from 5% damage on scepter or greatsword, I use Scepter, Torch, Shield, 1H sword, Greatsword, Hammer throughout the various maps.. the 10 in honor gives me vigor on crit/shout cooldowns, the 10 in valor gives me unscathed contender (20% damage with aegis up, this is what makes Scepter really work, gotta dodge and position well) or I can use consecration duration/cooldowns instead if it’s a hard fight with lots of projectiles to block. HOWEVER my pvp builds have never included scepter, no comment on that.

I switch from full berserkers to full power/tough/vital or whatever, depending on situation in the instance… not every dungeon is fractals or anything i’m just trying to give you an example.

Guardian is a super deep class that has endless valid trait setups, no tree sucks, you really have to analyze the traits and think it all through based on situations you find yourself in game.. that’s my advice.. while unemployed I play 2-3 builds per day, respeccing all the time(thank god its cheap)

Hi, i’ve over the past couple of weeks had 3 of my items disappear from my inventory, since the first one vanished I double check my buyback everytime I vendor things to make sure, I know there was a problem with items disappearing with encumbered but this is not the case, I also put my items in an invisible bag that I don’t want to sell.

Just wondering if this is a known problem or happening to anyone else.. my 15 gold scepter just vanished.

Strifey.7215:

You pull Rab to the back of the room with the first pack, then once you kill the adds you can burn him down solo then go to the back of the truck and burn down all the adds for the next 10 min. without him, just like before.

As far as the fractal, I agree it’s way too long and pretty boring, even if you do get alot of miner bags. The whole fractal revolves around endless spawns of mobs with protection buffs with alot of health at 40+.

Awesome thanks for the tip, that should help a bit.

note: this has nothing to do with the complaints in the other thread saying it’s impossible, never have much trouble with the button part even on 40(though it can take time).

For me FOTM is the best pve instance i’ve ever played in any mmo, i’ve always wanted one that scales in difficulty as you do it and I love how the goal is the super rare fractal weapons.. I have ONE problem with the instance.

Dredge fractal takes WAYYYYYY too long and the problem is it’s not even challenging(talking high 30’s-40), it’s a forced tedious loot farming session and the Rabsovich encounter has been really bad since the old days of fotm.. is anyone actually doing Rabsovich ‘as intended’? If so i’d love to see a video of it, pulling wave after wave watching the boss reset over and over for so long is just a really annoying time sink and not in line with the rest of fractals, nothing takes even half as long to do as Dredge at high levels(I liked it at lower levels, nice loot farm not too long, and of course when you could kill Rabs and then kill the waves at their spawn).

Please Arenanet consider making this map challenging instead of long and tedious, make Rabsovich more like Mossman or something, he’s basically a punching bag that stands there and dies after a million punching bags run at us dying just the same, what’s the point? It’s not challenging or interesting, I love doing fractals but I hate losing so much of my night of playtime when we unluckily draw it… wondering how much other lev 40ish fractal frequenters feel the same way, everyone seems to just absolutely hate it, it’s the one thing left in fractals that bothers me… we’ve decided to just reset if we get it 2nd map now, anyone else?

Less boredom and time more fun and challenge on this one please.

I highly recommend you try something like 0/20/0/30/20 or 0/0/20/30/30 or 0/0/10/30/30 with staff + hammer or shield/mace for extra support, try dwayna or altruism runes theyre not too expensive, get your healing up to 1200-1400, spec for battle stance and improved virtue of resolve and get your teammates to stay with you..

One of the tricks is get your precision high and keep proccing vigor and use +endurance food and master maintenance oil, dodge on teammates alot, heal with staff alot, do decent damage(1400 healing does not gimp your dps stats completely, get a healing stacking sigil)

Been having alot of fun and success with this for awhile and now will have more with the improvements to staff, thats my advice in a nutshell, i’m working on a viideo with these builds right now, here’s one with 1100 healing I uploaded a couple weeks ago as I was really starting to get into healing guardian again, i’ve improved at it alot and now go for 1300+ healing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JDySjnJpAM

Personally I enjoy the rarity of fractal weapons because I enjoy doing the dungeon(except dredge which is an annoying timesink), seeing them drop more at 36 than ever… it’s something to work for and exciting when one drops.. it’s purely cosmetic and tbh there are alot of cool weapon skins to go for in the game(except hammers I was quite happy to get that skin) have to realize it’s one of the only ways to get a rare skin which imho is cool, they’re rarer than legendaries…

That’s just me though and I understand some peoples frustration, I vote keep them hard to get just make them drop more and more at real high levels… something to work for.

Jarettellis.7813:

I can understand the gears, and spikefruit. Never had it happen to me, or anyone around me, but i can see the ways you could exploit it for lawls/unfair advantage.

Okay im not trolling for this next part, or advocating it heavily because i use it on one character, but: why really remove Skale Venom?

I understand Weakness+vulnerability are pretty powerful tools. Offensively and defensively. Kind of sucks something gets removed because someone/numerous people abuse it. Or people whine enough and it gets removed.

Not trying to get an infraction, just wondering why?

IMHO firstly alot of people don’t know about it/dont have it in general.. something like food everyone knows all about and is easily accessed, not that scale venom is hard to get.

Secondly why do people even want to feel obliged to use another consumable every 10 minutes? I find it annoying, i’m a competetive player so I try to remember but often don’t, looking forward to using it all up in fractals instead.

Most of all for me large groups already have a huge advantage vs small groups like how I play, why should they all get these extra bonus super effective conditions stacking on us by doing nothing but double clicking an annoying lowbie consumable every 10 minutes that cost a few copper, scale venom may not seem like a big deal in a 1v1 but when 20 people are on you it’s a big deal.

good riddance to all these consumables, should be about your traits/gear/skill/food choices thats enough..

Heinel.6548:

I’m sure you are looking at lots of green numbers and all but if you just kill or cc the people that’s causing all the hurt…

I think Anet just needs to decide whether they want healers to be in game or not, and either actually supporting them or writing them out.

Well I think you’re not trying hard enough, good dps can really benefit from ‘green numbers’, I know all about killing enemies and I know it helps alot if someone can duck out of the way and get recharged from spikes by someone to get right back in the fight, WvW is chaos, also my healing build does contribute damage and might buffs…

It sure isn’t as simple as just healing, you have to do damage as well, fortunately, or it would be boring… and you need communication, you need teammates to get to you, you need to get to teammates. Did you really try a healing build yourself? Battle Presence? Dodging alot? Fighting outnumbered it helps alot to have some kind of support be it heals or strong utility(tanky utility rezzer/finisher), just saying you can kill or cc instead is kind of ignorant imho, reasons why having a healer is so helpful for a world pvp group are many, gotta retreat move around and stay alive in the hardest situations.

Give protection at the right time(Hold the line/Shield #4), bail your team out of bad surprise situations, use tome of courage, turn a fight around.

I believe alot of Guardians are naysaying healing and not even trying it or not working hard at it… and thank god our healing builds aren’t pure healing and boring.

I recommend 0/0/20/30/20 with +1400 healing, get your crit% over 30.
A varation that i’ve used lately most but I do change things here and there depending on what my group is bringing to the table: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAW5elcg6CXFSLEm4ESmCRCBxegRZ0GdpgikIA